You already know that eating certain foods can help you lose weight and lower your risk of diabetes and heart disease, but following a healthy diet can also keep your brain sharp. The foods you eat affect neurological health in many ways – including effects on insulin resistance, detoxification and systemic inflammation – and provide essential vitamins, says Dale E. Bredesen, MD, neurologist and author of the book The End of the Alzheimer’s Program, which has an entire section devoted to foods that help prevent cognitive decline. The trick is to find a style of eating that optimizes your brain capacity and it is sustainable.
Scientists are working hard to try to solve this puzzle and find out how we can use nutrition to improve our cognition. For example, a 2015 study published in Alzheimer’s and dementia found that the MIND diet can delay their cognitive age by 7 ½ years. Abbreviation for Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay, the MIND diet combines the best of the Mediterranean and DASH diets, blocking the parts of each associated with protection against dementia. “Good fats, like olive oil and vegetables (which include high folate and cruciferous for detoxification) are healthy brain components of the Mediterranean diet,” says Dr. Bredesen. “Meanwhile, low-mercury vegetables and wild fish are brain-healthy components of the DASH diet.
The team of researchers behind the 2015 study followed more than 900 men and women aged 58 to 98 for an average of 41⁄2 years, assessing their diets with detailed food questionnaires and testing their cognitive function annually. They assessed the participants’ diets according to the degree of similarity between Mediterranean, DASH or MIND dietary patterns. The DASH diet reduced the risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) by 39%, the MIND diet by 53% and the Mediterranean diet by 54%. But wait – when the participants followed the diets moderately well, instead of literally, only the MIND diet returned significant results. He reduced the risk of AD by 53% in those who followed him closely and by 35% in those who followed him reasonably well. What that means is that strict DASH adherence and Mediterranean diets can reduce the risk of AD, but it can also moderate adherence to the MIND diet.
It is important to note that in the study, those with the highest scores on the MIND diet ate cheese and fried food or fast food less than once a week, red meat less than four times a week and desserts, sweets or pastries less than five times a week . They also used less than a tablespoon of butter or margarine a day and made olive oil their main source of fat. Translation: it is not enough to eat foods that do not harm the brain; to help decrease the risk of AD, it is necessary to limit these less healthy groups as well.
“Several studies are underway to test the impact of the MIND diet on cognitive decline and other structural changes in the brain after 3 years in 604 adults,” says Christy C. Tangney, Ph.D., CNS, FACN, professor in the Department of Nutrition Rush University Medical Center clinic in Chicago and co-author of the 2015 study. “We will learn a lot more from this essay on the role that this diet plan plays in brain health. The MIND diet is also one of four style approaches of life tested in another ongoing clinical trial known as US Pointer (US Study to Protect Brain Health Through Lifestyle intervention to reduce risk) that I’m working on. ”
For people who really want to take things to the next level, Dr. Bredesen recommends following a diet that supports ketosis, which studies show can increase cognition. Your KetoFlex 12/3 diet, which is very low in carbohydrates, is mainly vegetable based and requires you to eat all your food within a 12 hour window every day and stop eating three hours before going to bed. If this seems like an exaggeration to you, do what you can to limit your intake of processed foods, red meat and added sugar, prioritizing healthy brain foods. Combine the stars below with a vegetarian portion of your choice every day, and you’re on your way to improving your brainpower.